


Dreamcatcher

by Redbone135



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:09:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24789028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbone135/pseuds/Redbone135
Summary: Angst. Neal Cassidy hasn't dreamed since meeting Emma Swan all those years ago, but if he did...
Kudos: 5





	Dreamcatcher

He didn’t dream of his father.

The swirling green pit, opening from the earth to swallow him whole. They say The Dark One Never breaks a deal, but absolutes are a tricky thing - like dead mothers and soulmates that say the word ‘forever’ - you can’t always trust an absolute, even when it’s coming from your father.

His hands drip with sweat, his voice cracks with fear, missing the confidence of kept promises from seconds before. This isn’t what they had planned. This isn't what they had talked about at all. This isn’t what a father’s love is supposed to feel like.

New was exciting, when it was them.

New was full of hope, when they were together.

New was going to be better, when it was just Bae and his father.

He clings to those fingers, bent and discolored with magic, and bites back all the things he wants to say.

Because he wants to tell his dad that he loves him. Will always love him. 

He wants to tell his dad this was a mistake. 

But as the vortex twists and grabs, pulls and pries, at Bae’s legs, he knows there isn’t much he can say, there isn’t time for a persuasive argument. There is time for a goodbye, but both of their denial shoves those words aside to make room for something more hateful.

He knows he did - he screamed accusations like poison-dipped claws, hoping that something will dig into his father and hold them together. _Please. Coward. You promised._

In the dreams, he never says any of those words - instead he says what has been festering inside of him for centuries. I’m scared. I’m alone. I want my father.

The squeak of his shriek, of a child being ripped from reality, is normally so piercing it sets his teeth on edge and startles him awake in a cold sweat.

But he doesn’t dream of his father tonight.

As he sits up in the backseat of the Bug he swears he sees a faint glow coming from the dream-catcher Emma had insisted they hang around the rear-view mirror of their car. Just a glimmer and then it’s gone.

“Bad dream?” she asks, reaching from the passenger seat to clutch his hand, those big blue eyes, that he had often drowned his nightmares in before, watching him carefully.

He shakes his head, “No, just cold, I think. Want to crawl back here and warm me up?”

*

He didn’t dream of her.

Which is amazing because she is what fills his every waking thought. 

The curve of her grin, red-lined lips coaxing a small smile out of his own. They had promised to take care of each other - and in a twisted way Neal had only been trying to make good on that promise - but he doubted she would ever see it that way. How could she, when even he grappled with that terrible logic every day?

In his dreams, his hands always shake with nerves, his voice caught in his throat, as he tries to explain to her why he couldn’t keep those promises. This isn’t what they had planned. This isn’t what they had talked about at all. This isn’t what True Love is supposed to feel like.

They had planned to go to Tallahassee.

They had planned to get married.

They had planned to retire the Bonnie and Clyde Act and start a life as Neal and Emma.

He begs with her, in his mind, her eyes dark and cloudy, her smile warped with hatred and distrust into a mocking grimace.

He wants her to know what it is like to have a family. To have a home.

He needs her to forgive him so that he can forgive himself.

But she denies him every time, sometimes turning away, others she taunts him with accusations given voice by his own conscience. She tears at his heart, and sometimes his face, with long fingernails that sting as they meet his skin. He should have done so many things, should have said so many things, but once her fingers fall on him he is helpless to move.

He knows the words she yells at him never left her lips. _Baelfire. Coward. You Promised._

But in his dreams she says a lot of things that Emma never said to him. Because he never gave her the chance. She tells him she never loved him. She tells him he wasn’t worth her time. She tells him she doesn’t dream of him.

She gives him a shove, hard and hateful, and he falls back onto his mattress with a thundering heartbeat and panic flowing freely through his veins.

But he doesn’t dream of her tonight.

As he adjusts to the empty motel room, and vodka bottle still clutched in his hand, he swears he sees a soft glow coming from the dream-catcher he hadn’t been able to part with. He had sent her the money, the car, and the key chain, but he hadn’t been able to part with the dream-catcher - his last remnant of Emma. But as his eyes adjust to the darkened room, he realizes it must just be the light of the moon shining through the open curtains of his window.

He sits up, taking a swig from the vodka bottle and doing his best to drown his beating heart in enough alcohol to bring on that eerie calm he craves so much these days. 

He swallows hard as the liquor burns his throat, wishing for once he might dream. He hasn’t dreamed since Emma and right now he would take memories of his father over the haunting guilt he felt when he was awake.

*

He doesn’t dream of Storybrooke. 

The postcard burns his hands, one word scrawled across the back. Cursive loops twisting like ropes around his wrists, trying to trap him into falling back into that pain that took years to escape from. He had asked for this - had hoped and prayed for it, too - but now that the moment had arrived, he was afraid of being carried away from mediocrity into a life that had equal potential to be everything he had always wanted and his absolute worst fear. Though Neal wished he was a betting man, a braver man, he didn’t like to leap until he knew what was waiting at the bottom. And how could he know when he had always been too afraid to find out?

The single word on the postcard swells and grows, wrapping around his hands and stopping his voice in his throat, a black shadow carrying him to a world even more dangerous than Neverland. It carries him away from his plans. It carries him away from everything he’s spent the last year talking about. This isn’t the life he had come to terms with living.

The shadow shows him a future in which he marries Tamara, walking parallel to one where Emma forgives him. And he isn’t sure which hurts more.

The shadow shows him an apartment in New York, tucked neatly inside another that he shares with Emma. And he isn’t sure which one he is safe inside.

The shadow shows him a wedding in which he stands alone at the altar as Tamara approaches, twisting and turning into one where his father stands next to him with a hand on his shoulder as Emma glides forward. And he isn’t sure where it is going with this, but he needs it to stop.

He tries to run away from the shadow’s grip, but it is inescapable, holding him tightly in the assault of daydreams - both poignant and painful, painted in both obligation and desire.

Because in his heart, he knows what he wants more, but he doesn’t trust it. 

More importantly, Neal has worked hard to be a man of his word. He will not run from the woman he has sworn to love. He will not abandon this new life because he refuses to let go of the last one like his father did.

And so as Neal struggles to escape the shadow, its hold around him only swells until there is nothing but Neal and the shadow. Its empty darkness fills all the holes left behind by his father and Emma. It tries to seduce him into doing what he knows he mustn't. He shouts obscenities at it, cries for mercy, but it’s endless torment of bittersweet visions does not cease. 

He knows that the shadow is only showing him a mirror of what he doesn’t like to think about. Baelfire, Emma, and Tamara all screaming out at the same time. _Please. You Coward. You Promised._

And Neal tries to answer them all. _We can’t go back, only forward,_ he tries to tell his younger self to no avail. _I’m trying to be brave, to give you the life without me that you deserve,_ he tries to tell Emma as tears melt from her eyes and cut into his heart. _I’m going to keep my promise, there’s just a lot on my mind right now,_ he swears to Tamara as she turns away from him in anger.

The shadow begins to shrink, back into ink on paper, one simple word escapes Neal’s lips as he sits bolt upright in bed, his mind suddenly foggy. “Broken!”

But he doesn’t dream of Storybrooke tonight.

As he catches his breath, apologizing to Tamara for waking her with his scream, he swears he can see a pale glow from the dream-catcher he keeps in his window. He has filled his apartment with junk over the years, to distract from its prominent place among his possessions, but he never lets it out of his sight. Tamara had tried to take it down, she said she didn’t like the shadows it cast, the first time she had spent the night, and it had been the first big fight they had. But as soon as Tamara sits up, her hand rubbing at his shoulder, the glimmer fades and he knows it must just be a trick of the light.

“What was that?” she asks, her eyes more curious than concerned, as he tries his best to recall what she was talking about. “Did you have a nightmare, Neal?”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles again, trying to coax her into laying back down with him. He isn’t sure if he is apologizing for waking her, or because all he can think about these days is that damn postcard. 

*

_It was the first thing Emma saw when they opened the door to Neal’s apartment, her pleas to walk away going completely unnoticed by the others. Henry was already rifling through the cabinets, Gold was already out of sight in the bedroom._

_But Emma stood with her eyes glued to the little dream-catcher, radiating light like a beacon in the apartment window. Before she realized what she was doing she had it in her hands, unable to look away from it, clutching at it like a security blanket as she took in everything it had to offer._

_On the surface it was just their old dream-catcher - in immaculate condition, no less - that Neal had obviously held onto over the years. He had kept the strings from tearing, the feathers from falling off, the beads still bright and unscratched._

_But more than that, it was full of a powerful ache. Like the exhausted ache you took home in your bones from the beach after the waves had tossed you around all day. It hurt, but in the most tender of ways._

_And though she didn’t want to believe it, she could feel him there in those strings. That soft, painful ache that was the very essence of Neal. She could feel the nightmares, filled with loneliness and regret, fueled by a love so deep that even the most haunting images came from a place of wishing and wanting. She knew in that moment, his years of stolen dreams sinking into her palms and staining her heart, that she had never really stopped loving that man. That it was impossible for her to not love him, despite really not wanting to._

_“You found something, dearie?” Gold asked, startling her out of the haze, the vague glow of the dream-catcher seeming to dim as the ache receded from her fingertips._

_“Nothing!” she hurries to reply. Just a lifetime of nightmares that should have been dreams._


End file.
